(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus, Soclarus, Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon.)
959 1 1 Autobulus. When Leonidas was asked what sort of a person he considered Tyrtaeus to be, he replied, “A good poet to whet the souls of young men,” on the ground that by means of verses the poet inspired in young men keenness, accompanied by ardour and ambition whereby they sacrificed themselves freely in battle. And I am very much afraid, my friends, that the Praise of Hunting which was read aloud to us yesterday may so immoderately inflame our young men who like the sport that they will come to consider all other occupations as of minor, or of no, importance and concentrate on this. As a matter of fact, I myself caught the old fever all over again in spite of my years and longed, like Euripides’ Phaedra,
To halloo the hounds and chase the dappled deer;
so moved was I by the discourse as it brought its solid and convincing arguments to bear.
Soclarus. Exactly so, Autobulus. That reader yesterday seems to have roused his rhetoric from its long disuse to gratify the young men and share their vernal mood. I was particularly pleased with his introduction of gladiators and his argument that it is as good a reason as any to applaud hunting that after diverting to itself most of our natural or acquired pleasure in armed combats between human beings it affords an innocent spectacle of skill and intelligent courage pitted against witless force and violence. It agrees with that passage of Euripides:
Slight is the strength of men;
But through his mind’s resource
He subdues the dread
Tribes of the deep and races
Bred on earth and in the air.
2 1 Autobulus. Yet that is the very source, my dear Soclarus, from which they say insensibility spread among men and the sort of savagery that learned the taste of slaughter on its hunting trips and has grown accustomed to feel no repugnance for the wounds and gore of beasts, but to take pleasure in their violent death. The next step is like what happened at Athens: the first man put to death by the Thirty was a certain informer who was said to deserve it, and so was the second and the third; but after that they went on, step by step, until they were laying hands on honest men and eventually did not spare even the best of the citizens. Just so the first man to kill a bear or a wolf won praise; and perhaps some cow or pig was condemned as suitable to slay because it had tasted the sacred meal placed before it. So from that point, as they now went on to eat the flesh of deer and hare and antelope, men were introduced to the consumption of sheep and, in some places, of dogs and horses.
The tame goose and the dove upon the hearth,
as Sophocles says, were dismembered and carved for food — not that hunger compelled men as it does weasels and cats, but for pleasure and as an appetizer. Thus the brute and the natural lust to kill in man were fortified and rendered inflexible to pity, while gentleness was, for the most part, deadened. It was in this way, on the contrary, that the Pythagoreans, to inculcate humanity and compassion, made a practice of kindness to animals; for habituation has a strange power to lead men onward by 960 a gradual familiarization of the feelings.
Well, we have somehow fallen unawares into a discussion not unconnected with what we said yesterday nor yet with the argument that is presently to take place to day. Yesterday, as you know, we proposed the thesis that all animals partake in one way or another of reason and understanding, and thereby offered our young hunters a field of competition not lacking in either instruction or pleasure: the question whether land or sea animals have superior intelligence. This argument, it seems, we shall to day adjudicate if Aristotimus and Phaedimus stand by their challenges; for Aristotimus put himself at his comrades’ disposal to advocate the land as producer of animals with superior intelligence, while the other will be pleader for the sea.
Soclarus. They’ll stand by their word, Autobulus; they’ll be here any minute now. Early this morning I observed them both preparing for the fray. But, if you like, before the contest begins, let us review the discussion of whatever topics are germane to our conversation of yesterday, but were not then discussed, either because no occasion offered, or, since we were in our cups, were treated too lightly. I thought, in fact, that I caught the reverberation of a material objection from the Stoa: just as the immortal is opposed to the mortal and the imperishable to the perishable, and, of course, the incorporeal to the corporeal; just so, if there is rationality, the irrational must exist as its opposite and counterpart. This alone, among all these pairings, must not be left incomplete and mutilated.
3 1 Autobulus. But who ever, my dear Soclarus, maintained that, while rationality exists in the universe, there is nothing irrational? For there is a plentiful abundance of the irrational in all things that are not endowed with a soul; we need no other sort of counterpart for the rational: everything that is soulless, since it has no reason or intelligence, is by definition in opposition to that which, together with a soul, possesses also reason and understanding. Yet suppose some were to maintain that nature must not be left maimed, but that that part of nature which is endowed with a soul should have its irrational as well as its rational aspect, someone else is bound to maintain that nature endowed with a soul must have both an imaginative and an unimaginative part, and both a sentient part and an insentient. They want nature, they say, to have these counteractive and contraposed positives and negatives of the same kind counterbalanced, as it were. But if it is ridiculous to require an antithesis of sentient and insentient within the class of living things, or an antithesis of imaginative and unimaginative, seeing that it is the nature of every creature with a soul to be sentient and imaginative from the hour of its birth, so he, also, is unreasonable who demands a division of the living into a rational and an irrational part — and that, too, when he is arguing with men who believe that nothing is endowed with sensation which does not also partake of intelligence and that there is no living thing which does not naturally possess both opinion and reason, just as it has sensation and appetite. For nature, which, they rightly say, does everything with some purpose and to some end, did not create the sentient creature merely to be sentient when something happens to it. No, for there are in the world many things friendly to it, many also hostile; and it could not survive for a moment if it had not learned to give the one sort a wide berth while freely mixing with the other. It is, to be sure, sensation that enables each creature to recognize both kinds; but the acts of seizing or pursuing that ensue upon the perception of what is beneficial, as well as the eluding or fleeing of what is destructive or painful, could by no means occur in creatures naturally incapable of some sort of reasoning and judging, remembering and attending. Those beings, then, which you deprive of all expectation, memory, design, or preparation, and of all hopes, fears, desires, or griefs — they will have no use for eyes or ears either, even though they have them. Indeed, it would be better to be rid of all sensation and imagination that has nothing to make use of it, 961 rather than to know toil and distress and pain while not possessing any means of averting them.
There is, in fact, a work of Strato, the natural philosopher, which proves that it is impossible to have sensation at all without some action of the intelligence. Often, it is true, while we are busy reading, the letters may fall on our eyes, or words may fall on our ears, which escape our attention since our minds are intent on other things; but later the mind recovers, shifts its course, and follows up every detail that had been neglected; and this is the meaning of the saying:
Mind has sight and Mind has hearing;
Everything else is deaf and blind,
indicating that the impact on eyes and ears brings no perception if the understanding is not present. For this reason also King Cleomenes, when a recital made at a banquet was applauded and he was asked if it did not seem excellent, replied that the others must judge, for his mind was in the Peloponnesus. So that, if we are so constituted that to have sensation we must have understanding, then it must follow that all creatures which have sensation can also understand.
But let us grant that sensation needs no help of intelligence to perform its own function; nevertheless, when the perception that has caused an animal to distinguish between what is friendly and what is hostile is gone, what is it that from this time on remembers the distinction, fears the painful, and wants the beneficial? And, if what it wants is not there, what is there in animals that devises means of acquiring it and providing lairs and hiding-places — both traps for prey and places of refuge from attackers? And yet those very authors rasp our ears by repeatedly defining in their Introductions “purpose” as “an indication of intent to complete,” “design” as “an impulse before an impulse,” “preparation” as “an act before an act,” and “memory” as “an apprehension of a proposition in the past tense of which the present tense has been apprehended by perception.” For there is not one of these terms that does not belong to logic; and the acts are all present in all animals as, of course, are cognitions which, while inactive, they call “notions,” but when they are once put into action, “concepts.” And though they admit that emotions one and all are “false judgements and seeming truths,” it is extraordinary that they obviously fail to note many things that animals do and many of their movements that show anger or fear or, so help me, envy or jealousy. They themselves punish dogs and horses that make mistakes, not idly but to discipline them; they are creating in them through pain a feeling of sorrow, which we call repentance.
Now pleasure that is received through the ears is a means of enchantment, while that which comes through the eyes is a kind of magic: they use both kinds against animals. For deer and horses are bewitched by pipes and flutes, and crabs are involuntarily lured from their holes by lotus pipes; it is also reported that shad will rise to the surface and approach when there is singing and clapping. The horned owl, again, can be caught by the magic of movement, as he strives to twist his shoulders in delighted rhythm to the movements of men dancing before him.
As for those who foolishly affirm that animals do not feel pleasure or anger or fear or make preparations or remember, but that the bee “as it were” remembers and the swallow “as it were” prepares her nest and the lion “as it were” grows angry and the deer “as it were” is frightened — FI don’t know what they will do about those who say that beasts do not see or hear, but “as it were” hear and see; that they have no cry but “as it were”; nor do they live at all but “as it were.” For these last statements (or so I believe) are no more contrary to plain evidence than those that they have made.
4 1 Soclarus. Well, Autobulus, you may count me also as one who believes your statements; yet on comparing the ways of beasts with human customs and lives, 962 with human actions and manner of living, I find not only many other defects in animals, but this especially: they do not explicitly aim at virtue, for which purpose reason itself exists; nor do they make any progress in virtue or have any bent for it; so that I fail to see how Nature can have given them even elementary reason, seeing that they cannot achieve its end.
Autobulus. But neither does this, Soclarus, seem absurd to those very opponents of ours; for while they postulate that love of one’s offspring is the very foundation of our social life and administration of justice, and observe that animals possess such love in a very marked degree, yet they assert and hold that animals have no part in justice. Now mules are not deficient in organs; they have, in fact, genitals and wombs and are able to use them with pleasure, yet cannot attain the end of generation. Consider another approach: is it not ridiculous to keep affirming that men like Socrates and Plato are involved in vice no less vicious than that of any slave you please, that they are just as foolish and intemperate and unjust, and at the same time to stigmatize the alloyed and imprecise virtue of animals as absence of reason rather than as its imperfection or weakness? And this, though they acknowledge that vice is a fault of reason and that all animals are infected with vice: many, in fact, we observe to be guilty of cowardice and intemperance, injustice and malice. He, then, who holds that what is not fitted by nature to receive the perfection of reason does not even receive any reason at all is, in the first place, no better than one who asserts that apes are not naturally ugly or tortoises naturally slow for the reason that they are not capable of possessing beauty or speed. In the second place, he fails to observe the distinction which is right before his eyes: mere reason is implanted by nature, but real and perfect reason is the product of care and education. And this is why every living creature has the faculty of reasoning; but if what they seek is true reason and wisdom, not even man may be said to possess it. For as one capacity for seeing or flying differs from another D(hawks and cicadas do not see alike, nor do eagles and partridges fly alike), so also not every reasoning creature has in the same way a mental dexterity or acumen that has attained perfection. For just as there are many examples in animals of social instincts and bravery and ingenuity in ways and means and in domestic arrangements, so, on the other hand, there are many examples of the opposite: injustice, cowardliness, stupidity. And the very factor which brought about our young men’s contest to day provides confirmation. It is on an assumption of difference that the two sides assert, one that land animals, the other that sea animals, are naturally more advanced toward virtue. This is clear also if you contrast hippopotamuses with storks: the latter support their fathers, while the former kill them in order to consort with their mothers. The same is true if you compare doves with partridges; for the partridge cock steals the eggs and destroys them since the female will not consort with him while she is sitting, whereas male doves assume a part in the care of the nest, taking turns at keeping the eggs warm and being themselves the first to feed the fledglings; and if the female happens to be away for too long a time, the male strikes her with his beak and drives her back to her eggs or squabs. And while Antipater was reproaching asses and sheep for their neglect of cleanliness, I don’t know how he happened to overlook lynxes and swallows; for lynxes dispose of their excrement by concealing and doing away with it, while swallows teach their nestlings to turn tail and void themselves outward.
Why, moreover, do we not say that one tree is less intelligent than another, as a sheep is by comparison with a dog; or one vegetable more cowardly than another, as a stag is by comparison with a lion? 963 Is the reason not that, just as it is impossible to call one immovable object slower than another, so among all creatures to whom Nature has not given the faculty of understanding, we cannot say that one is more cowardly or more slothful or more intemperate? Whereas it is the presence of understanding, of one kind in one animal, of another kind in another, and in varying degree, that has produced the observable differences.
5 1 Soclarus. Yet it is astonishing how greatly man surpasses the animals in his capacity for learning and in sagacity and in the requirements of justice and social life.
Autobulus. There are in fact, my friend, many animals which surpass all men, not only in bulk and swiftness, but also in keen sight and sharp hearing; but for all that man is not blind or crippled or earless. We can run, if less swiftly than deer; and see, if less keenly than hawks; nor has Nature deprived us of strength and bulk even though, by comparison with the elephant and the camel, we amount to nothing in these matters. In the same way, then, let us not say of beasts that they are completely lacking in intellect and understanding and do not possess reason even though their understanding is less acute and their intellect inferior to ours; what we should say is that their intellect is feeble and turbid, like a dim and clouded eye. And if I did not expect that our young men, learned and studious as they are, would very shortly present us here, one with a large collection of examples drawn from the land, the other with his from the sea, I should not have denied myself the pleasure of giving you countless examples of the docility and native capacity of beasts — of which fair Rome has provided us a reservoir from which to draw in pails and buckets, as it were, from the imperial spectacles. Let us leave this subject, therefore, fresh and untouched for them to exercise their art upon in discourse.
There is, however, one small matter which I should like to discuss with you quietly. It is my opinion that each part and faculty has its own particular weakness or defect or ailment which appears in nothing else, as blindness in the eye, lameness in the leg, stuttering in the tongue. There can be no blindness in an organ which was not created to see, or lameness in a part which was not designed for walking; nor would you ever describe an animal without a tongue as stuttering, or one voiceless by nature as inarticulate. And in the same way you would not call delirious or witless or mad anything that was not endowed by Nature with reason or intelligence or understanding; for it is impossible to ail where you have no faculty of which the ailment is a deficiency or loss or some other kind of impairment. Yet certainly you have encountered mad dogs, and I have also known of mad horses; and there are some who say that cattle and foxes also go mad. But dogs will do, since no one questions the fact in their case, which provides evidence that the creature possesses reason and a by no means despicable intellectual faculty. What is called rabies and madness is an ailment of that faculty when it becomes disturbed and disordered. For we observe no derangement either of the dogs’ sight or of their hearing; yet, just as when a human being suffers from melancholy or insanity, anyone is absurd who does not admit that it is the organ that thinks and reasons and remembers which has been displaced or damaged (we habitually say, in fact, of madmen that they “are not themselves,” but have “fallen out of their wits”), just so, whoever believes that rabid dogs have any other ailment than an affliction of their natural organ of judgement and reason and memory so that, when this has become infected with disorder and insanity, they no longer recognized beloved faces and shun their natural haunts — such a man, I say, either must be disregarding the evidence or, if he does take note of the conclusion to which it leads, must be quarrelling with the truth.
6 1 Soclarus. Your inference seems quite justified. For the Stoics and Peripatetics strenuously agree on the other side, to the effect that justice could not then come into existence, but would remain completely without form or substance, 964 if all the beasts partake of reason. For either we are necessarily unjust if we do not spare them; or, if we do not take them for food, life becomes impracticable or impossible; in a sense we shall be living the life of beasts once we give up the use of beasts. I omit the numberless hosts of Nomads and Troglodytes who know no other food but flesh. As for us who believe our lives to be civilized and humane, it is hard to say what pursuit on land or sea, what aerial art, what refinement of living, is left to us if we are to learn to deal innocently and considerately with all creatures, Bas we are bound to if they possess reason and are of one stock with us. So we have no help or cure for this dilemma which either deprives us of life itself or of justice, unless we do preserve that ancient limitation and law by which, according to Hesiod, he who distinguished the natural kinds and gave each class its special domain:
To fish and beasts and winged birds allowed
Licence to eat each other, for no right
Exists among them; right, he gave to men
for dealing with each other. Those who know nothing of right action toward us can receive no wrong from us either. For those who have rejected this argument have left no path, either broad or narrow, by which any may slip in.
7 1 Autobulus. This, my friend, has been spoken “from the heart.” We certainly must not allow philosophers, as though they were women in difficult labour, to put about their necks a charm for speedy delivery so that they may bring justice to birth for us easily and without hard labour. For they themselves do not concede to Epicurus, for the sake of the highest considerations, a thing so small and trifling as the slightest deviation of a single atom — which would permit the stars and living creatures to slip in by chance and would preserve from destruction the principle of free will. But, seeing that they bid him demonstrate whatever is not obvious or take as his starting-point something that is obvious, how are they in any position to make this statement about animals a basis of their own account of justice, when it is neither generally accepted nor otherwise demonstrated by them? For justice has another way to establish itself, a way which is neither so treacherous nor so precipitous, nor is it a route lined with the wreckage of obvious truths. It is the road which, under the guidance of Plato, my son and your companion, Soclarus, points out to those who have no love of wrangling, but are willing to be led and to learn. For certain it is that Empedocles and Heraclitus accept as true the charge that man is not altogether innocent of injustice when he treats animals as he does; often and often do they lament and exclaim against Nature, declaring that she is “Necessity” and “War,” that she contains nothing unmixed and free from tarnish, that her progress is marked by many unjust inflictions. As an instance, say, even birth itself springs from injustice, since it is a union of mortal with immortal, and the offspring is nourished unnaturally on members torn from the parent.
These strictures, however, seem to be unpalatably strong and bitter; for there is an alternative, an inoffensive formula which does not, on the one hand, deprive beasts of reason, yet does, on the other, preserve the justice of those who make fit use of them. When the wise men of old had introduced this, gluttony joined luxury to cancel and annul it; Pythagoras, however, reintroduced it, teaching us how to profit without injustice. There is no injustice, surely, in punishing and slaying animals that are anti-social and merely injurious, while taming those that are gentle and friendly to man and making them our helpers in the tasks for which they are severally fitted by nature:
Offspring of horse and ass and seed of bulls
which Aeschylus’ Prometheus says that he bestowed on us
965 To serve us and relieve our labours;
and thus we make use of dogs as sentinels and keep herds of goats and sheep that are milked and shorn. For living is not abolished nor life terminated when a man has no more platters of fish or pâté de foie gras or mincemeat of beef or kids’ flesh for his banquets — or when he no longer, idling in the theatre or hunting for sport, compels some beasts against their will to stand their ground and fight, while he destroys others which have not the instinct to fight back even in their own defence. For I think sport should be joyful and between playmates who are merry on both sides, not the sort Bof which Bion spoke when he remarked that boys throw stones at frogs for fun, but the frogs don’t die for “fun,” but in sober earnest. Just so, in hunting and fishing, men amuse themselves with the suffering and death of animals, even tearing some of them piteously from their cubs and nestlings. The fact is that it is not those who make use of animals who do them wrong, but those who use them harmfully and heedlessly and in cruel ways.
8 1 Soclarus. Restrain yourself, Autobulus, and turn off the flow of these accusations. I see a good many gentlemen approaching who are all hunters; you will hardly convert them and you needn’t hurt their feelings.
Autobulus. Thanks for the warning. Eubiotus, however, I know quite well and my cousin Ariston, and Aeacides and Aristotimus here, the sons of Dionysius of Delphi, and Nicander, the son of Euthydamus, all of them “expert,” as Homer expresses it, in the chase by land — and for this reason they will be on Aristotimus’ side. So too yonder comes Phaedimus with the islanders and coast-dwellers about him, Heracleon from Megara and the Euboean Philostratus,
Whose hearts are on deeds of the sea.
And here is my contemporary Optatus: like Diomedes, it is
Hard to tell the side on which he ranges,
for “with many a trophy from the sea, many likewise from the chase on the mountain, he has glorified” the goddess who is at once the Huntress and Dictynna. It is evident that he is coming to join us with no intention of attaching himself to either side. Or am I wrong, my dear Optatus, in supposing that you will be an impartial and neutral umpire between the young men?
Optatus. It is just as you suppose, Autobulus. Solon’s law, which used to punish those who adhered to neither side in a factious outbreak, has long since fallen into disuse.
Autobulus. Come over here, then, and take your place beside us so that, if we need evidence, we shall not have to disturb the tomes of Aristotle, but may follow you as expert and return a true verdict on the arguments.
Soclarus. Well then, my young friends, have you reached any agreement on procedure?
Phaedimus. We have, Soclarus, though it occasioned considerable controversy; but at length, as Euripides has it,
The lot, the child of chance,
made arbiter, admits into court the case of the land animals before that of creatures from the sea.
Soclarus. The time has come, then, Aristotimus, for you to speak and us to hear.
965 9 1 Aristotimus. The court is open for the litigants . . . And there are some fish that waste their milt by pursuing the female while she is laying her eggs.
There is also a type of mullet called the grayfish which feeds on its own slime; and the octopus sits through the winter devouring himself,
In fireless home and domicile forlorn,
so lazy or insensible or gluttonous, or guilty of all of these charges, is he. So this also is the reason, again, why Plato in his Laws enjoined, For rather prayed, that his young men might not be seized by “a love for sea hunting.” For there is no exercise in bravery or training in skill or anything that contributes to strength or fleetness or agility when men endure toil in contests with bass or conger or parrot-fish; 966 whereas, in the chase on land, brave animals give play to the courageous and danger-loving qualities of those matched against them, crafty animals sharpen the wits and cunning of their attackers, while swift ones train the strength and perseverance of their pursuers. These are the qualities which have made hunting a noble sport, whereas there is nothing glorious about fishing. And, and there’s not a god, my friend, who has allowed himself to be called “conger-killer,” as Apollo is “wolf-slayer,” or “surmullet-slayer,” as Artemis is “deer-slaying.” And what is surprising in this when it’s a more glorious thing for a man to have caught a boar or a stag, or, so help me, a gazelle or a hare than to have bought one? As for your tunny and your mackerel and your bonito! They’re more honourable to buy than to catch oneself. B For their lack of spirit or of any kind of resource or cunning has made the sport dishonourable, unfashionable, and illiberal.
10 1 In general, then, the evidence by which the philosophers demonstrate that beasts have their share of reason is their possession of purpose and preparation and memory and emotions and care for their young and gratitude for benefits and hostility to what has hurt them; to which may be added their ability to find what they need and their manifestations of good qualities, such as courage and sociability and continence and magnanimity. Let us ask ourselves if marine creatures exhibit any of these traits, or perhaps some suggestion of them, that is extremely faint and difficult to discern (the observer only coming at long last to the opinion that it may be descried); whereas in the case of terrestrial and earth-born animals it is easy to find remarkably plain and unanswerable proofs of every one of the points I have mentioned.
In the first place, then, behold the purposeful demonstrations and preparations of bulls stirring up dust when intent on battle, and wild boars whetting their tusks. Since elephants’ tusks are blunted by wear when, by digging or chopping, they fell the trees that feed them, they use only one tusk for this purpose and keep the other always pointed and sharp for defence. Lions always walk with paws clenched and claws retracted so that these may not be dulled by wear at the point or leave a plain trail for trackers; for it is not easy to find any trace of a lion’s claw; on the contrary, any sign of a track that is found is so slight and obscure that hunters lose the trail and go astray. You have heard, I am sure, how the ichneumon girds itself for battle as thoroughly as any soldier putting on his armour, such a quantity of mud does it don and plaster about its body when it plans to attack the crocodile. Moreover, we see house-martins preparing for procreation: how well they lay the solid twigs at the bottom to serve as a foundation, then mould the lighter bits about them; and if they perceive that the nest needs a lump of mud to glue it together, they skim over a pond or lake, touching the water with only the tips of their feathers to make them moist, yet not heavy with dampness; then they scoop up dust and so smear over and bind together any parts that begin to sag or loosen. As for the shape of their work, it has no angles nor many sides, but is as smooth and circular as they can make it; such a shape is, in fact, both stable and capacious and provides no hold on the outside for scheming animals.
There is more than one reason for admiring spiders’ webs, the common model for both women’s looms and fowlers’ nets; for there is the fineness of the thread and the evenness of the weaving, which has no disconnected threads and nothing like a warp, but is wrought with the even continuity of a thin membrane and a tenacity that comes from a viscous substance inconspicuously worked in. Then too, there is the blending of the colours that gives it an airy, misty look, the better to let it go undetected; and most notable of all is the art itself, like a charioteer’s or a helmsman’s, with which the spinner handles her artifice. When a possible victim is entangled, she perceives it, and uses her wits, like a skilled handler of nets, to close the trap suddenly and make it tight. 967 Since this is daily under our eyes and observation, my account is confirmed. Otherwise it would seem a mere fiction, as I formerly regarded the tale of the Libyan crows which, when they are thirsty, throw stones into a pot to fill it and raise the water until it is within their reach; but later when I saw a dog on board ship, since the sailors were away, putting pebbles into a half empty jar of oil, I was amazed at its knowing that lighter substances are forced upward when the heavier settle to the bottom.
Similar tales are told of Cretan bees and of geese in Cilicia. When the bees are going to round some windy promontory, they ballast themselves with little stones so as not to be carried out to sea; while the geese, in fear of eagles, take a large stone in their beaks whenever they cross Mt. Taurus, as it were reining in and bridling their gaggling loquacity that they may pass over in silence unobserved. It is well known, too, how cranes behave when they fly. Whenever there is a high wind and rough weather they do not fly, as on fine days, in line abreast or in a crescent-shaped curve; but they form at once a compact triangle with the point cleaving the gale that streams past, so that there is no break in the formation. When they have descended to the ground, the sentinels that stand watch at night support themselves on one foot and with the other grasp a stone and hold it firmly; the tension of grasping this keeps them awake for a long time; but when they do relax, the stone escapes and quickly rouses the culprit. So that I am not at all surprised that Heracles tucked his bow under his arm:
Embracing it with mighty arm he sleeps,
Keeping his right hand gripped about the club.
Nor, again, am I surprised at the man who first guessed how to open an oyster when I read of the ingenuity of herons. For they swallow a closed mussel and endure the discomfort until they know that it has been softened and relaxed by their internal heat; then they disgorge it wide open and unfolded and extract the meat.
11 It is impossible to relate in full detail all the methods of production and storage practised by ants, but it would be careless to omit them entirely. Nature has, in fact, nowhere else so small a mirror of greater and nobler enterprises. Just as you may see greater things reflected in a drop of clear water, so among ants there exists the delineation of every virtue.
Love and affection are found,
namely their social life. You may see, too, the reflection of courage in their persistence in hard labour. There are many seeds of temperance and many of prudence and justice. Now Cleanthes, even though he declared that animals are not endowed with reason, says that he witnessed the following spectacle: some ants came to a strange anthill carrying a dead ant. Other ants then emerged from the hill and seemed, as it were, to hold converse with the first party and then went back again. This happened two or three times until at last they brought up a grub to serve as the dead ant’s ransom, whereupon the first party picked up the grub, handed over the corpse, and departed.
A matter obvious to everyone is the consideration ants show when they meet: those that bear no load always give way to those who have one and let them pass. Obvious also is the manner in which they gnaw through and dismember things that are difficult to carry or to convey past an obstacle, in order that they may make easy loads for several. And Aratus takes it to be a sign of rainy weather when they spread out their eggs and cool them in the open:
When from their hollow nest the ants in haste
Bring up their eggs;
and some do not write “eggs” here, but “provisions,” in the sense of stored grain which, when they notice that it is growing mildewed and fear 968 that it may decay and spoil, they bring up to the surface. But what goes beyond any other conception of their intelligence is their anticipation of the germination of wheat. You know, of course, that wheat does not remain permanently dry and stable, but expands and lactifies in the process of germination. In order, then, to keep it from running to seed and losing its value as food, and to keep it permanently edible, the ants eat out the germ from which springs the new shoot of wheat.
I do not approve of those who, to make a complete study of anthills, inspect them, as it were, anatomically. But, be that as it may, they report that the passage leading downward from the opening is not at all straight or easy for any other creature to traverse; it passes through turns and twists with branching tunnels and connecting galleries and terminates in three hollow cavities. One of these is their common dwelling-place, another serves as storeroom for provisions, while in the third they deposit the dying.
12 1 I don’t suppose that you will think it out of order if I introduce elephants directly on top of ants in order that we may concurrently scrutinize the nature of understanding in both the smallest and the largest of creatures, for it is neither suppressed in the latter nor deficient in the former. Let others, then, be astonished that elephants learn, or are taught, to exhibit in the theatre all the many postures and variations of movement that they do, these being so varied and so complicated to memorize and retain that they are not at all easy even for human artists. For my part, I find the beast’s understanding better manifested in his own spontaneous and uninstructed feelings and movements, in a pure, as it were, and undiluted state.
Well, not very long ago at Rome, where a large number of elephants were being trained to assume dangerous stances and wheel about in complicated patterns, one of them, who was the slowest to learn and was always being scolded and often punished, was seen at night, alone by himself in the moonlight, voluntarily rehearsing his lessons and practising them.
Formerly in Syria, Hagnon tells us, an elephant was brought up in its master’s house and every day the keeper, when he received a measure of barley, would filch away and appropriate half of it; but on one occasion, when the master was present and watching, the keeper poured out the whole measure. The elephant gave a look, raised its trunk, and made two piles of the barley, setting aside half of it and thus revealing as eloquently as could be the dishonesty of its keeper. And another elephant, whose keeper used to mix stones and dirt in its barley ration, when the keeper’s meat was cooking, scooped up some ashes and threw them into the pot. And another in Rome, being tormented by little boys who pricked its proboscis with their writing styluses, grabbed one of them and raised him into the air as first to dash him to death; but when the spectators cried out, it gently set the child down on the ground again and passed along, thinking it sufficient punishment for one so young to have been frightened.
Concerning wild elephants who are self-governing they tell many wonderful tales, particularly the one about the fording of rivers: the youngest and smallest volunteers his services to go first into the stream. The others wait on the bank and observe the result, for if his back remains above water, those that are larger than he will have a wide margin of safety to give them confidence.
13 1 At this point in my discourse, I imagine that I shall do well not to omit the case of the fox, since it is so similar. Now the story-books tell us that when Deucalion released a dove from the ark, as long as she returned, it was a certain sign that the storm was still raging; but as soon as she flew away, it was a harbinger of fair weather. So even to this day the Thracians, whenever they propose crossing a frozen river, make use of a fox as an indicator of the solidity of the ice. 969 The fox moves ahead slowly and lays her ear to the ice; if she perceives by the sound that the stream is running close underneath, judging that the frozen part has no great depth, but is only thin and insecure, she stands stock still and, if she is permitted, returns to the shore; but if she is reassured by the absence of noise, she crosses over. And let us not declare that this a nicety of perception unaided by reason; it is, rather, a syllogistic conclusion developed from the evidence of perception: “What makes noise must be in motion; what is in motion is not frozen; what is not frozen is liquid; what is liquid gives way.” So logicians assert that a dog, at a point where many paths split off, makes use of a multiple disjunctive argument and reasons with himself: “Either the wild beast has taken this path, or this, or this. But surely it has not taken this, or this. Then it must have gone by the remaining road.” Perception here affords nothing but the minor premiss, while the force of reason gives the major premisses and adds the conclusion to the premisses. A dog, however, does not need such a testimonial, which is both false and fraudulent; for it is perception itself, by means of track and spoor, which indicates the way the creature fled; it does not bother with disjunctive and copulative propositions. The dog’s true capacity may be discerned from many other acts and reactions and the performance of duties, which are neither to be smelled out nor seen by the eye, but can be carried out or perceived only by the use of intelligence and reason. I should only make myself ridiculous if I described the dog’s self-control and obedience and sagacity on hunting parties to you who see and handle these matters every day.
There was a Roman named Calvus slain in the Civil Wars, but no one was able to cut off his head until they encircled and stabbed to death the dog who guarded his master and defended him. And King Pyrrhus on a journey chanced upon a dog guarding the body of a murdered man; in answer to his questions he was told that the dog had remained there without eating for three days and refused to leave. Pyrrhus gave orders for the corpse to be buried and the dog cared for and brought along in his train. A few days later there was an inspection of the soldiers, who marched in front of the king seated on his throne, while the dog lay quietly by his side. But when it saw its master’s murderers filing past, it rushed at them with furious barking and, as it voiced its accusation, turned to look at the king so that not only he, but everyone present, became suspicious of the men. They were at once arrested and when put to the question, with the help of some bits of external evidence as well, they confessed the murder and were punished.
The same thing is said to have been done by the poet Hesiod’s dog, which convicted the sons of Ganyctor the Naupactian, by whom Hesiod had been murdered. But a matter which came to the attention of our fathers when they were studying at Athens is even plainer than anything so far mentioned. A certain fellow slipped into the temple of Asclepius, took such gold and silver offerings as were not bulky, and made his escape, thinking that he had not been detected. But the watchdog, whose name was Capparus, when none of the sacristans responded to its barking, pursued the escaping temple-thief. First the man threw stones at it, but could not drive it away. When day dawned, the dog did not approach close, but followed the man, always keeping him in sight, and refused the food he offered. When he stopped to rest, the dog passed the night on guard; when he struck out again, the dog got up and kept following, fawning on the other people it met on the road and barking at the man and sticking to his heels. When those who were investigating the robbery learned this from men who had encountered the pair and were told the colour and size of the dog, they pursued all the more vigorously and overtook the man and brought him back from Crommyon. 970 On the return the dog led the procession, capering and exultant, as though it claimed for itself the credit for pursuing and capturing the temple-thief. The people actually voted it a public ration of food and entrusted the charge of this to the priests in perpetuity, thereby imitating the ancient Athenian kindness to the mule. For when Pericles was building the Hecatompedon on the Acropolis, stones were naturally brought by numerous teams of draught-animals every day. Now one of the mules who had assisted gallantly in the work, but had now been discharged because of old age, used to go down every day to the Ceramicus and meet the beasts which brought the stones, turning back with them and trotting along by their side, as though to encourage and cheer them on. So the people of Athens, admiring its enterprise, gave orders for it to be maintained at the public expense, voting it free meals, as though to an athlete who had succumbed to old age.
14 Therefore those who deny that there is any kind of justice owed to animals by us must be conceded to be right so far as marine and deep-sea creatures are concerned; for these are completely lacking in amiability, apathetic, and devoid of all sweetness of disposition. And well did Homer say
The gray-green sea bore you,
with reference to a man regarded as uncivilized and unsociable, implying that the sea produces nothing friendly or gentle. But a man who would use such speech in regard to land animals is himself cruel and brutal. Or perhaps you will not admit that there was a bond of justice between Lysimachus and the Hyrcanian dog which alone stood guard by his corpse and, when his body was cremated, rushed into the flames and hurled itself upon him. The same is reported to have been done by the eagle which was kept by Pyrrhus, not the king, but a certain private citizen; when he died, it kept vigil by his body; at the funeral it hovered about the bier and finally folded its wings, settled on the pyre and was consumed with its master’s body.
The elephant of King Porus, when he was wounded in the battle against Alexander, gently and solicitously pulled out with its trunk many of the javelins sticking in its master. Though it was in a sad state itself, it did not give up until it perceived that the king had lost much blood and was slipping off; then, fearing that he would fall, it gently kneeled and afforded its master a painless glide.
Bucephalas unsaddled would permit his groom to mount him; but when he was all decked out in his royal accoutrements and collars, he would let no one approach except Alexander himself. If any others tried to come near, he would charge at them loudly neighing and rear and trample any of them who were not quick enough to rush far away and escape.
15 1 I am not unaware that you will think that my examples are rather a hodge-podge; but it is not easy to find naturally clever animals doing anything which illustrates merely one of their virtues. Their probity, rather, is revealed in their love of offspring and their cleverness in their nobility; then, too, their craftiness and intelligence is inseparable from their ardour and courage. Those, nevertheless, who are intent on classifying and defining each separate occasion will find that dogs give the impression of a mind that is at once civil and superior when they turn away from those who sit on the ground — which is presumably referred to in the lines
The dogs barked and rushed up, but wise Odysseus
Cunningly crouched; the staff slipped from his hand;
for dogs cease attacking those who have thrown themselves down and taken on an attitude that resembles humility.
They relate further that the champion of the Indian dogs, one greatly admired by Alexander, when a stag was let loose and a boar and a bear, lay quiet and still and disregarded them; but when a lion appeared, it sprang up at once to prepare for the fray, showing clearly 971 that it chose to match itself with the lion and scorned all the others.
Hounds that hunt hares, if they themselves kill them, enjoy pulling them to pieces and eagerly lap up the blood; but if, as frequently happens, a hare in desperation exhausts all its breath in a final sprint and expires, the hounds, when they come upon it dead, will not touch it at all, but stand there wagging their tails, as much as to say that they do not strive for food, but for victory and the honour of winning.
16 1 There are many examples of cunning, but I shall dismiss foxes and wolves and the tricks of crane and daw (for they are obvious), and shall take for my witness Thales, the most ancient of the Wise Men, not the least of whose claims to admiration, they say, was his getting the better of a mule by a trick. For one of the mules that were used to carry salt, on entering a river, accidentally stumbled and, since the salt melted away, it was free of its burden when it got up. It recognized the cause of this and bore it in mind. The result was that every time it crossed the river, it would deliberately lower itself and wet the bags, crouching and bending first to one side, then to the other. When Thales heard of this, he gave orders to fill the bags with wool and sponges instead of salt and to drive the mule laden in this manner. So when it played its customary trick and soaked its burden with water, it came to know that its cunning was unprofitable and thereafter was so attentive and cautious in crossing the river that the water never touched the slightest portion of its burden even by accident.
Partridges exhibit another piece of cunning, combined with affection for their young. They teach their fledglings, who are not yet able to fly, to lie on their backs when they are pursued and to keep above them as a screen some piece of turf or rubbish. The mothers meanwhile lure the hunters in another direction and divert attention to themselves, fluttering along at their feet and rising only briefly until, by making it seem that they are on the point of being captured, they draw them far away from their young.
When hares return for repose, they put to sleep their leverets in quite different places, often as much as a hundred feet apart, so that, if man or dog comes near, they shall not all be simultaneously in danger. The hares themselves run to and fro and leave tracks in many places, but last of all with a great leap they leave their traces far behind, and so to bed.
The she-bear, just prior to the state called hibernation, before she becomes quite torpid and heavy and finds it difficult to move, cleans out her lair and, when about to enter, approaches it as lightly and inconspicuously as possible, treading on tiptoe, then turns around and backs into the den.
Hinds are inclined to bear their young beside a public road where carnivorous animals do not come; and stags, when they observe that they have grown heavy by reason of their fat and surplus flesh, vanish and preserve themselves by hiding when they do not trust to their heels.
The way in which hedgehogs defend and guard themselves has occasioned the proverb:
The fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog one big one;
for when the fox approaches, as Ion says, it,
Curling its spiny body in a coil,
Lies still, impregnable to touch or bite.
But the provision that the hedgehog makes for its young is even more ingenious. When autumn comes, it creeps under the vines and with its paws shakes down to the ground grapes from the bunches and, having rolled about in them, gets up with them attached to its quills. 972 Once when I was a child I saw one, like a creeping or walking bunch of grapes! Then it goes down into its hole and delivers its load to its young for them to enjoy and draw rations from. Their lair has two openings, one facing the south, the other the north; when they perceive that the wind will change, like good skippers who shift sail, they block up the entrance which lies to the wind and open the other. And a man in Cyzicus observing this acquired a reputation for being able to predict unaided which way the wind would blow.
17 1 Elephants, as Juba declares, exhibit a social capacity joined with intelligence. Hunters dig pits for them, covering them with slender twigs and light rubbish; when, accordingly, any elephant of a number travelling together falls in, the others bring wood and stones and throw them in to fill up the excavation so that their comrade can easily get out. He also relates that, without any instruction, elephants pray to the gods, purifying themselves in the sea and, when the sun rises, worshipping it by raising their trunks, as if they were hands of supplication. For this reason they are the animal most loved of the gods, as Ptolemy Philopator has testified; for when he had vanquished Antiochus and wished to honour the gods in a really striking way, among many other offerings to commend his victory in battle, he sacrificed four elephants. Thereafter, since he had dreams by night in which the deity angrily threatened him because of that strange sacrifice, he employed many rites of appeasement and set up as a votive offering four bronze elephants to match those he had slaughtered.
Social usages are to be found no less among lions. For young lions take along with them to the hunt the old and slow; when the latter are tired out, they rest and wait, while the young lions hunt on. When they have taken anything, they summon the others by a raring like the bleat of a calf; the old ones hear it at once and come to partake in common of the prey.
18 1 The loves of some animals are wild and furious, while others have a refinement which is not far from human and an intercourse conducted with much grace. Such was the elephant which at Alexandria played the rival to Aristophanes the grammarian. They were, in fact, in love with the same flower-girl; nor was the elephant’s love less manifest: as he passed by the market, he always brought her fruit and stood beside her for a long time and would insert his trunk, like a hand, within her garments and gently caress her fair breasts.
The serpent that fell in love with an Aetolian woman used to visit her at night and slip under some part of her body next the skin and coil about her without doing her any harm at all, either intentional or accidental; but always at daybreak it was decent enough to glide away. And this it did constantly until the kinsmen of the woman removed her to a house at some distance. The serpent did not come to her for three or four nights; but all the time, we may suppose, it was going about in search of her and missing its goal. At last, when it had somehow found her with difficulty, it embraced her, not with that former gentleness it had used, but rather more roughly, its coils binding her hands to her body, and with the end of its tail it lashed the calves of her legs, displaying a light and tender anger that had in it more indulgence than punishment.
As for the goose in Aegium that loved a boy and the ram that set his heart on Glauce the harp-player, since these are famous tales and I rather imagine you have had enough of such to spoil your appetite for more, I omit them.
19 1 As for starlings and crows and parrots which learn to talk and afford their teachers so malleable and imitative a vocal current to train and discipline, 973 they seem to me to be champions and advocates of the other animals in their ability to learn, instructing us in some measure that they too are endowed both with rational utterance and with articulate voice; for which reason it is quite ridiculous to admit a comparison of them with creatures who have not enough voice even to howl or groan. And what music, what grace do we not find in the natural, untaught warbling of birds! To this the most eloquent and musical of our poets bear witness when they compare their sweetest songs and poems to the singing of swans and nightingales. Now since there is more reason in teaching than in learning, we must yield assent to Aristotle when he says that animals do teach: a nightingale, in fact, has been observed instructing her young how to sing. A further proof that supports him is the fact that birds which have been taken young from the nest and bred apart from their mothers sing the worse for it; for the birds that are bred with their mothers are taught and learn, not for pay or glory, but for the joy of rivalling each other in song and because they cherish the beautiful in their utterance rather than the useful.
On this subject I have a story to tell you which I heard myself from many Greeks and Romans who were eye-witnesses. A certain barber at Rome had his shop directly opposite the precinct which they call the Market of the Greeks. He bred up a wonderful prodigy of a jay with a huge range of tones and expressions, which could reproduce the phrases of human speech and the cries of beasts and the sound of instruments — under no compulsion, but making it a rule and point of honour to let nothing go unrepeated or unimitated. Now it happened that a certain rich man was buried from that quarter to the blast of many trumpets and, as is customary, there was a halt in front of the barber-shop while the trumpeters, who were applauded and encored, played for a long time. From that day on the jay was speechless and mute, not letting out even a peep to request the necessities of life; so those who habitually passed the place and had formerly wondered at her voice, were now even more astonished at her silence. Some suspected that she had been poisoned by rival bird-trainers, but most conjectured that the trumpets had blasted her hearing and that her voice had been simultaneously extinguished. Now neither of these guesses was correct: it was self-discipline, it would seem, and her talent for mimicry that had sought an inner retreat as she refitted and prepared her voice like a musical instrument. For suddenly her mimicry returned and there blazed forth none of those old familiar imitations, but only the music of the trumpets, reproduced with its exact sequences and every change of pitch and rhythm and tone. I conclude, as I said before, that self-instruction implies more reason in animals than does readiness to learn from others.
Still, I believe that I should not pass over one example at least of a dog’s learning, of which I myself was a spectator at Rome. The dog appeared in a pantomime with a dramatic plot and many characters and conformed in its acting at all points with the acts and reactions required by the text. In particular, they experimented on it with a drug that was really soporific, but supposed in the story to be deadly. The dog took the bread that was supposedly drugged, swallowed it, and a little later appeared to shiver and stagger and nod until it finally sprawled out and lay there like a corpse, letting itself be dragged and hauled about, as the plot of the play prescribed. But when it recognized from the words and the action that the time had come, at first it began to stir slightly, as though recovering from a profound sleep, and lifted its head and looked about. 974 Then to the amazement of the spectators it got up and proceeded to the right person and fawned on him with joy and pleasure so that everyone, and even Caesar himself (for the aged Vespasian was present in the Theatre of Marcellus), was much moved.
20 Yet perhaps it is ridiculous for us to make a parade of animals distinguished for learning when Democritus declares that we have been their pupils in matters of fundamental importance: of the spider in weaving and mending, of the swallow in home-building, of the sweet-voiced swan and nightingale in our imitation of their song. Further, of the three divisions of medicine, we can discern in animals a generous portion of each; for it is not cure by drugs alone of which they make use. After devouring a serpent tortoises take a dessert of marjoram, and weasels of rue. Dogs purge themselves when bilious by a certain kind of grass. The snake sharpens and restores its fading sight with fennel. When the she-bear comes forth from her lair, the first thing she eats is wild arum; for its acridity opens her gut which has become constricted. At other times, when she suffers from nausea, she resorts to anthills and sits, holding out her tongue all running and juicy with sweet liquor until it is covered with ants; these she swallows and is alleviated. The Egyptians declare that they have observed and imitated the ibis’ clyster-like purging of herself with brine; and the priests make use of water from which an ibis has drunk to purify themselves; for if the water is tainted or unhealthy in any way, the ibis will not approach it.
Then, too, some beasts cure themselves by a short fast, like wolves and lions who, when they are surfeited with flesh, lie still for a while, basking in the sun. And they say a tigress, if a kid is given her, will keep fasting for two days without eating; on the third, she grows hungry and asks for some other food. She will even pull her cage to pieces, but will not touch the kid which she has now come to regard as a fellow-boarder and room mate.
Yet again, they relate that elephants employ surgery: they do, in fact, bring aid to the wounded by easily and harmlessly drawing out spars and javelins and arrows without any laceration of the flesh. And Cretan goats, when they eat dittany, easily expel arrows from their bodies and so have presented an easy lesson for women with child to take to heart, that the herb has an abortive property; for there is nothing except dittany that the goats, when they are wounded, rush to search for.
21 1 These matters, though wonderful, are less surprising than are those creatures which have cognition of number and can count, as do the cattle near Susa. At that place they irrigate the royal park with water raised in buckets by wheels, and the number of bucketfuls is prescribed. For each cow raises one hundred bucketfuls each day, and more you could not get from her, even if you wanted to use force. In fact, they often try to add to the number to see; but the cow balks and will not continue when once she has delivered her quota, so accurately does she compute and remember the sum, as Ctesias of Cnidus has related.
The Libyans laugh at the Egyptians for telling a fabulous tale about the oryx, that it lets out a cry at that very day and hour when the star rises that they call Sothis, which we call the Dog Star or Sirius. At any rate, when this star rises flush with the sun, practically all the goats turn about and look toward the east; and this is the most certain sign of its return and agrees most exactly with the tables of mathematical calculation.
22 1 975 But that my discourse may add its finishing touch and terminate, let me “make the move from the sacred line” and say a few words about the divine inspiration and the mantic power of animals. It is, in fact, no small or ignoble division of divination, but a great and very ancient one, which takes its name from birds; for their quickness of apprehension and their habit of responding to any manifestation, so easily are they diverted, serves as an instrument for the god, who directs their movements, their calls or cries, and their formations which are sometimes contrary, sometimes favouring, as winds are; so that he uses some birds to cut short, others to speed enterprises and inceptions to the destined end. It is for this reason that Euripides calls birds in general “heralds of the gods”; and, in particular, Socrates says that he considers himself a “fellow-slave of the swans.” So again, among monarchs Pyrrhus liked to be called an Eagle and Antiochus a Hawk. But when we deride, or rail at, stupid and ignorant people we call them “fish.” Really, we can produce cases by the thousand of signs and portents manifested to us by the gods through creatures of land and air, but not one such can the advocate for aquatic creatures name. No, they are all “deaf and blind” so far as foreseeing anything goes, and so have been cast aside into the godless and titanic region, as into a Limbo of the Unblessed, where the rational and intelligent part of the soul has been extinguished. Having, however, only a last remnant of sensation that is clogged with mud and deluged with water, they seem to be at their last gasp rather than alive.
975 23 1 Heracleon. Raise your brows, dear Phaedimus, and rouse yourself to defend us the sea folk, the island-dwellers! This bout of argument has become no child’s play, but a hard-fought contest, a debate which lacks only the actual bar and platform.
Phaedimus. Not so, Heracleon, but an ambush laid with malice aforethought has been disclosed. While we are still tipsy and soused from yesterday’s bout, this gentleman, as you see, has attacked us with premeditation, cold sober. Yet there can be no begging off. Devotee of Pindar though I am, I do not want to be addressed with the quotation
To excuse oneself when combat is offered
Has consigned valour to deep obscurity;
for we have much leisure; and it is not our discourse that will be idle, but our dogs and horses, our nets and seines of all kinds, for a truce is granted for to day because of our argument to every creature both on land and sea. Yet do not fear: I shall use it with moderation, introducing no opinions of philosophers or Egyptian fables or unattested tales of Indians or Libyans. But those facts that may be observed everywhere and have as witnesses the men who exploit the sea and acquire their credit from direct observation, of these I shall present a few. Yet there is nothing to impede illustrations drawn from land animals: the land is wide open for investigation by the senses. The sea, on the other hand, grants us but a few dubious glimpses. She draws a veil over the birth and growth, the attacks and reciprocal defences, of most of her denizens. Among these there are no few feats of intelligence and memory and community spirit that remain unknown to us and so obstruct our argument. Then too, land animals by reason of their close relationship and their cohabitation have to some extent been imbued with human manners; they have the advantage of their breeding and teaching and imitation, which sweetens all their bitterness and sullenness, like fresh water mixed with brine, while their lack of understanding and dullness are roused to life by human contacts. Whereas the life of sea creatures, being set apart by mighty bounds from intercourse with men and having nothing adventitious or acquired from human usage, 976 is peculiar to itself, indigenous and uncontaminated by foreign ways, not by distinction of Nature, but of location. For their Nature is such as to welcome and retain such instruction as reaches them. This it is that renders many eels tractable, like those that are called sacred in Arethusa; and in many places there are fish which will respond to their own names, as the story goes of Crassus’ moray, upon the death of which he wept. And once when Domitius said to him, “Isn’t it true that you wept when a moray died?” he answered, “Isn’t it true that you buried three wives and didn’t weep?’
The priests’ crocodiles not only recognize the voice of those who summon them and allow themselves to be handled, but open their mouths to let their teeth be cleaned by hand and wiped with towels. Recently our excellent Philinus came back from a trip to Egypt and told us that he had seen in Antaeopolis an old woman sleeping on a low bed beside a crocodile, which was stretched out beside her in a perfectly decorous way.
They have long been telling the tale that when King Ptolemy summoned the sacred crocodile and it would not heed him or obey in spite of his entreaties and requests, it seemed to the priests an omen of his death, which came about not long after; whence it appears that the race of water creatures is not wholly unendowed with your precious gift of divination. Indeed, I have heard that near Sura, a village in Lycia between Phellus and Myra, men sit and watch the gyrations and flights and pursuits of fish and divine from them by a professional and rational system, as others do with birds.
24 1 But let these examples suffice to show that sea animals are not entirely unrelated to us or cut off from human fellowship. Of their uncontaminated and native intelligence their caution is strong evidence. For nothing that swims and does not merely stick or cling to rocks is easily taken or captured without trouble by man as are asses by wolves, bees by bee-eaters, cicadas by swallows, and snakes by deer, which easily attract them. This, in fact, is why deer are called elaphoi, not from their swiftness, but from their power of attracting snakes. So too the ram draws the wolf by stamping and they say that very many creatures, and particularly apes, are attracted to the panther by their pleasure in its scent. But in practically all sea-creatures any sensation is suspect and evokes an intelligently inspired defensive reaction against attack, so that fishing has been rendered no simple or trivial task, but needs all manner of implements and clever and deceitful tricks to use against the fish.
This is perfectly clear from ready examples: no one wants to have an angler’s rod too thick, though it needs elasticity to withstand the thrashing of such fish as are caught; men select, rather, a slender rod so that it may not cast a broad shadow and arouse suspicion. In the next place, they do not thicken the line with many plies when they attach the loop and do not make it rough; for this, too, betrays the lure to the fish. They also contrive that the hairs which form the leader shall be as white as possible; for in this way they are less conspicuous in the sea because of the similarity of colour. The remark of the Poet:
Like lead she sank into the great sea depths,
Like lead infixed in horn of rustic ox
Which brings destruction to the ravenous fish —
some misunderstand this and imagine that the ancients used ox-hair for their lines, alleging that keras means “hair” and for this reason keirasthai means “to have one’s hair cut” and koura is a “haircut” and the keroplastes in Archilochus is one who is fond 977 of trimming and beautifying the hair. But this is not so: they use horse-hair which they take from males, for mares by wetting the hair with their urine make it weak. Aristarchus declares that there is nothing erudite or subtle in these lines; the fact is that a small piece of horn was attached to the line in front of the hook, since the fish, when they are confronted by anything else, chew the line in two. They use rounded hooks to catch mullets and bonitos, whose mouths are small; for they are wary of a broader hook. Often, indeed, the mullet suspects even a rounded hook and swims around it, flipping the bait with its tail and snatching up bits it has dislodged; or if it cannot do this, it closes its mouth and purses it up and with the tips of its lips nibbles away at the bait.
The sea-bass is braver than your elephant: it is not from another, but from himself without assistance, that he extracts the barb when he is caught by the hook; he swings his head from side to side to widen the wound, enduring the pain of tearing his flesh until he can throw off the hook. The fox-shark does not often approach the hook and shuns the lure; but if he is caught, he immediately turns himself inside out, for by reason of the elasticity and flexibility of his body he can naturally shift and twist it about, so that when he is inside out, the hook falls away.
25 1 Now the examples I have given indicate intelligence and an ingenious, subtle use of it for opportune profit; but there are others that display, in combination with understanding, a social sense and mutual affection, as is the case with the barbier and the parrot-fish. For if one parrot-fish swallows the hook, the others present swarm upon the line and nibble it away; and the same fish, when any of their kind have fallen into the net, give them their tails from outside; when they eagerly fix their teeth in these, the others pull on them and bring them through in tow. And barbiers are even more strenuous in rescuing their fellows: getting under the line with their backs, they erect their sharp spines and try to saw the line through and cut if off with the rough edge.
Yet we know of no land animal that has the courage to assist another in danger — not bear or boar or lioness or panther. True it is that in the arena those of the same kind draw close together and huddle in a circle; yet they have neither knowledge nor desire to help each other. Instead, each ones flees to get as far as possible from a wounded or dying fellow. That tale of the elephants carrying brushwood to the pits and giving their fallen comrade a ramp to mount is monstrous and far-fetched and dictates, as it were, that we are to believe it on a king’s prescription — that is, on the writs of Juba. Suppose it to be true: it merely proves that many sea creatures are in no way inferior in community spirit and intelligence to the wisest of the land animals. As for their sociability, I shall soon make a special plea on that topic.
26 1 Now fishermen, observing that most fish evade the striking of the hook by such countermoves as wrestlers use, resorted, like the Persians, to force and used the dragnet, since for those caught in it there could be no escape with the help of reason or cleverness. For mullet and rainbow-wrasse are caught by casting-nets and round nets, as are also the bream and the sargue and the goby and the sea-bass. The so called net fish, that is surmullet and gilthead and sculpin, are caught in seines by trawling: accordingly it was quite correct for Homer to call this kind of net a “catch-all.” Codfish, like bass, have devices even against these. For when the bass perceives that the trawl is approaching, it forces the mud apart and hammers a hollow in the bottom. When it has made room enough to allow the net to overrun it, it thrusts itself in and waits until the danger is past.
Now when the dolphin is caught and perceives itself to be trapped in the net, it bides its time, not at all disturbed but well pleased, for it feasts without stint on the fish that have been gathered with no trouble to itself. But as soon as it comes near the shore, it bites its way through the net and makes its escape. 978 Yet if it should not get away in time, on the first occasion it suffers no harm: the fishermen merely sew rushes to its crest and let it go. But if it is taken a second time, they recognize it from the seam and punish it with a beating. This, however, rarely occurs: most dolphins are grateful for their pardon in the first instance and take care to do no harm in the future.
Further, among the many examples of wariness, precaution, or evasion, we must not pass over that of the cuttlefish: it has the so called mytis beside the neck full of black liquid, which they call “ink.” When it is come upon, it discharges the liquid to the purpose that the sea shall be inked out and create darkness around it while it slips through and eludes the fisherman’s gaze. In this it imitates Homer’s gods who often “in a dark cloud” snatch up and smuggle away those whom they are pleased to save. But enough of this.
27 1 As for cleverness in attacking and catching prey, we may perceive subtle examples of it in many different species. The starfish, for example, knowing that everything with which it comes in contact dissolves and liquefies, offers its body and is indifferent to the contact of those that overtake or meet it. You know, of course, the property of the torpedo: not only does it paralyse all those who touch it, but even through the net creates a heavy numbness in the hands of the trawlers. And some who have experimented further with it report that if it is washed ashore alive and you pour water on it from above, you may perceive the numbness mounting to the hand and dulling your sense of touch by way of the water which, so it seems, suffers a change and is first infected. Having, therefore, an innate sense of this power, it never makes a frontal attack or endangers itself; rather, it swims in a circle around its prey and discharges its shocks as if they were darts, thus poisoning first the water, then through the water the creature which can neither defend itself nor escape, being held fast as if by chains and frozen stiff.
The so called fisherman is known to many; he gets his name from his actions. Aristotle says that the cuttlefish also makes use of this stratagem: he lets down, like a fishing line, a tentacle from his neck which is naturally designed to extend to a great length when it is released, or to be drawn to him when it is pulled in. So when he espies a little fish, he gives it the feeler to bite and then by degrees imperceptibly draws it back toward himself until the prey attached to the arm is within reach of his mouth.
As for the octopus’ change of colour, Pindar has made it celebrated in the words
To all the cities to which you resort
Bring a mind like the changing skin of the seabeast;
and Theognis likewise:
Be minded like the octopus’ hue:
The colour of its rock will meet the view.
The chameleon, to be sure, is metachromatic, but not from any design or desire to conceal itself; it changes colour uselessly from fear, being naturally timid and cowardly. And this is consistent with the abundance of air in it, as Theophrastus says; for nearly the whole body of the creature is occupied by its lungs, which shows it to be full of air and for this reason easily moved to change colour. But this same action on the part of the octopus is not an emotional response, but a deliberate change, since it uses this device to escape what it fears and to capture what it feeds on: by this deceit it can both seize the latter, which does not try to escape, and avoid the former, which proceeds on its way. Now the story that it eats its own tentacles is a lie, but it is true that it fears the moray and the conger. It is, in fact, maltreated by them; for it cannot do them harm, since they slip from its grasp. 979 On the other hand, when the crawfish has once got them in its grasp, it wins the victory easily, for smoothness is no aid against roughness; yet when the octopus has once thrust its tentacles inside the crawfish, the latter succumbs. And so Nature has created this cycle and succession of mutual pursuit and flight as a field for the exercise and competitive practice of adroitness and intelligence.
28 1 We have, to be sure, heard Aristotimus telling us about the hedgehog’s foreknowledge of the winds; and our friend also admired the V shaped flight of cranes. I can produce no hedgehog of Cyzicus or Byzantium, but instead the whole body of sea-hedgehogs, which, when they perceive that storm and surf are coming, ballast themselves with little stones in order that they may not be capsized by reason of their lightness or be swept away by the swell, but may remain fixed in position through the weight of their little rocks.
Again, the cranes’ change of flight against the wind is not merely the action of one species: all fish generally have the same notion and always swim against wave and current, taking care that a blast from the rear does not fold back their scales and expose and roughen their bodies. For this reason they always present the prow of their bodies to the waves, for in that way head first they cleave the sea, which depresses their gills and, flowing smoothly over the surface, keeps down, instead of ruffling up, the bristling kin. Now this, as I have said, is common to all fish except the sturgeon, which, they say, swims with wind and tide and does not fear the harrowing of its scales since the overlaps are not in the direction of the tail.
29 1 The tunny is so sensitive to equinox and solstice that it teaches even men themselves without the need of astronomical tables; for wherever it may be when the winter solstice overtakes it, in that same place it stands and stays until the equinox. As for that clever device of the crane, the grasping of the stone by night so that if it falls, she may awake from sleep — how much cleverer, my friend, is the artifice of the dolphin, for whom it is illicit to stand still or to cease from motion. For its nature is to be ever active: the termination of its life and its movement is one and the same. When it needs sleep, it rises to the surface of the sea and allows itself to sink deeper and deeper on its back, lulled to rest by the swinging motion of the ground swell until it touches the bottom. Thus roused, it goes whizzing up, and when it reaches the surface, again goes slack, devising for itself a kind of rest combined with motion. And they say that tunnies do the same thing for the same reason.
Having just a moment ago given you an account of the tunny’s mathematical foreknowledge of the reversal of the sun, of which Aristotle is a witness, I beg you to hear the tale of their arithmetical learning. But first, I swear, I must mention their knowledge of optics, of which Aeschylus seems not to have been ignorant, for these are his words:
Squinting the left eye like a tunny fish.
They seem, indeed, to have poor sight in one eye. And it is for this reason that when they enter the Black Sea, they hug one bank on the right, and the other when they are going out, it being very prudent and sagacious of them always to entrust the protection of themselves to the better eye. Now since they apparently need arithmetic to preserve their consociation and affection for each other, they have attained such perfection of learning that, since they take great pleasure in feeding and schooling together, they always form the school into a cube, making it an altogether solid figure with a surface of six equal solid plane sides; then they swim on their way preserving their formation, a square that faces both ways. 980 Certainly a hooer watching for tunnies who counts the exact number of the surface at once makes known the total number of the shoal, since he knows that the depth is equal one to one with the breadth and the length.
30 1 Schooling together has also given the bonitos their name of amia and I think this is true of year-old tunnies as well. As for the other kinds which are observed to live in shoals in mutual society, it is impossible to state their number. Let us rather, therefore, proceed to examine those that have a special partnership, that is, symbiosis. One of these is the pinna-guard, over which Chrysippus spilled a very great deal of ink; indeed it has a reserved seat in every single book of his, whether ethical or physical. Chrysippus has obviously not investigated the sponge-guard; otherwise he could hardly have left it out. Now the pinna-guard is a crab-like creature, so they say, who lives with the pinna and sits in front of the shell guarding the entrance. It allows the pinna to remain wide open and agape until one of the little fish that are their prey gets within; then the guard nips the flesh of the pinna and slips inside; the shell is closed and together they feast on the imprisoned prey.
The sponge is governed by a little creature not resembling a crab, but much like a spider. Now the sponge is no lifeless, insensitive, bloodless thing; though it clings to the rocks, as many other animals do, Cit has a peculiar movement outward and inward which needs, as it were, admonition and supervision. In any case it is loose in texture and its pores are relaxed because of its sloth and dullness; but when anything edible enters, the guard gives the signal, and it closes up and consumes the prey. Even more, if a man approaches or touches it, informed by the scratching of the guard, it shudders, as it were, and so closes itself up by stiffening and contracting that it is not an easy, but a very difficult, matter for the hunters to undercut it.
The purplefish lives in colonies which build up a comb together, like bees. In this the species is said to propagate; they catch at edible bits of oyster-green and seaweed that stick to shells, and furnish each other with a sort of periodic rotating banquet, as they feed one after another in series.
31 1 And why should anyone be surprised at the community life of these when the most unsociable and brutal of all creatures bred in river, lake, or sea, the crocodile, shows himself marvellously proficient at partnership and goodwill in his dealings with the Egyptian plover? The plover is a bird of the swamps and river banks and it guards the crocodile, not supplying its own food, but as a boarder making a meal of the crocodile’s scraps. Now when it perceives that, during the crocodile’s sleep, the ichneumon is planning to attack it, smearing itself with mud like an athlete dusting himself for the fray, the bird awakes the crocodile by crying and pecking at it. And the crocodile becomes so gentle with it that it will open its mouth and let it in and is pleased that the bird quietly pecks out, with its bill, bits of flesh which are caught in the teeth and cleans them up. When it is now satisfied and wants to close its mouth, it tilts its snout upward as an indication of its desire and does not let it down until the plover, at once perceiving the intention, flies out.
The so called “guide” is a small fish, in size and shape like a goby; but by reason of the roughness of its scales it is said to resemble a ruffled bird. It always accompanies one of the great whales, swimming in front of it and directing its course so that it may not go aground in shallows or be cut off in some lagoon or strait from which exit may be difficult. 981 The whale follows it, as a ship obeys the helm, changing course with great docility. And whatever else, creature or boat or stone, it embraces in its gaping jaws is at once destroyed and goes to its ruin completely engulfed; but the little fish it knows and receives inside its mouth as in a haven. While the fish sleeps within, the whale remains motionless and lies by; but when it comes out again, the beast accompanies it and does not depart from it day or night; or, if it does, it gets lost and wanders at random. Many, indeed, have been cast up on the land and perished, being, as it were, without a pilot. We, in fact, were witnesses of such a mishap near Anticyra not long ago; and they relate that some time ago, when a whale came aground not far from Boulis and rotted, a plague ensued.
Is it, then, justifiable to compare with these associations and companionships those friendships which Aristotle says exist between foxes and snakes because of their common hostility to the eagle; or those between bustards and horses because the former like to approach and pick over the dung? As for me, I perceive even in ants or bees no such concern for each other. It is true that every one of them promotes the common task, yet none of them has any interest in or regard for his fellow individually.
32 1 And we shall observe this difference even more clearly when we turn our attention to the oldest and most important of social institutions and duties, those concerned with generation and procreation. Now in the first place those fish that inhabit a sea that borders on lagoons or receives rivers resort to these when they are ready to deposit their eggs, seeking the tranquillity and smoothness of fresh water, since calm is a good midwife. Besides, lagoons and rivers are devoid of sea monsters, so that the eggs and fry may survive. This is the reason why the Black Sea is most favoured for spawning by very many fish. It breeds no large sea beasts at all except an infrequent seal and a small dolphin; besides, the influx of rivers — and those which empty into the Black Sea are numerous and very large — creates a gentle blend conducive to the production of offspring. The most wonderful tale is told about the anthias, which Homer calls “Sacred Fish.” Yet some think that “sacred” means “important,” just as we call the important bone os sacrum and epilepsy, an important disease, the sacred disease. Others interpret it in the ordinary sense as meaning “dedicated” or “consecrated.” Eratosthenes seems to refer to the gilthead when he says
Swift courser golden-browed, the sacred fish.
Many say that this is the sturgeon, which is rare and hard to catch, though it is often seen off the coast of Pamphylia. If any ever do succeed in catching it, they put on wreaths themselves and wreathe their boats; and, as they sail past, they are welcomed and honoured with shouts and applause. But most authorities hold that it is the anthias that is and is called “sacred,” for wherever this fish appears there are no sea monsters. Sponge-fishers may dive in confidence and fish may spawn without fear, as though they had a guarantor of their immunity. The reason for this is a puzzle: whether the monsters avoid the anthias as elephants do a pig and lions a cock, or whether there are indications of places free from monsters, which the fish comes to know and frequents, being an intelligent creature with a good memory.
33 1 Then again the care of the young is shared by both parents: the males do not eat their own young, but stand by the spawn to guard the eggs, as Aristotle relates. Some follow the female and sprinkle the eggs gradually with milt, for otherwise the spawn will not grow, but remains imperfect and undeveloped. In particular the wrasse makes a sort of nest of seaweed, envelops the spawn in it, and shelters it from the waves.
982 The affection of the dogfish for its young is not inferior in warmth and kindliness to that of any of the tamest animals; for they lay the egg, then sustain and carry the newly hatched young, not without, but within themselves, as if from a second birth. When the young grow larger, the parents let them out and teach them to swim close by; then again they collect them through their mouths and allow their bodies to be used as dwelling-places, affording at once room and board and sanctuary until the young become strong enough to shift for themselves.
Wonderful also is the care of the tortoise for the birth and preservation of her young. To bear them she comes out of the sea to the shore near at hand; but since she is unable to incubate the eggs or to remain on dry land for long, she deposits them on the strand and heaps over them the smoothest and softest part of the sand. When she has buried and concealed them securely, some say that she scratches and scribbles the place with her feet, making it easy for her to recognize; others affirm that it is because she has been turned on her back by the male that she leaves peculiar marks and impressions about the place. But what is more remarkable than this, she waits for the fortieth day (for that is the number required to develop and hatch out the eggs) and then approaches. And each tortoise recognizes her own treasure and opens it more joyously and eagerly than a man does a deposit of gold.
34 1 The accounts given of the crocodile are similar in other respects, but the animal’s ability to estimate the right place goes beyond man’s power to guess or calculate the cause. Hence they affirm that this creature’s foreknowledge is divine and not rational. For neither to a greater or a less distance, but just so far as the Nile will spread that season and cover the land in flood, just so far does she go to deposit her eggs, with such accuracy that any farmer finding the eggs may know himself and predict to others how far the river will advance. And her purpose in being so exact is to prevent either herself or her eggs getting wet when she sits on them. When they are hatched, the one which, upon emerging, does not immediately seize in its mouth anything that comes along, fly or midge or worm or straw or plant, the mother tears to pieces and bites to death; but those that are bold and active she loves and tends, thus bestowing her affection by judgement, as the wisest of men think right, not by emotion.
Furthermore, seals too bear their young on dry land and little by little induce their offspring to try the sea, then quickly take them out again. This they do often at intervals until the young are conditioned in this way to feel confidence and enjoy life in the sea.
Frogs in their coupling use a call, the so called ololygon, a cry of wooing and mating. When the male has thus attracted the female, they wait for the night together, for they cannot consort in the water and during the day they are afraid to do so on land; but when the darkness falls, they come out and embrace with impunity. On other occasions when their cry is shrill, it is because they expect rain. And this is among the surest of signs.
35 1 But, dear Poseidon! What an absurd and ridiculous error I have almost fallen into: while I am spending my time on seals and frogs, FI have neglected and omitted the wisest of sea creatures, the most beloved of the gods! For what nightingales are to be compared with the halcyon for its love of sweet sound, or what swallows for its love of offspring, or what doves for its love of its mate, or what bees for its skill in construction? What creature’s procreation and birth pangs has the god so honoured? For Leto’s parturition, so they say, only one island was made firm to receive her; but when the halcyon lays her eggs, about the time of the winter solstice, the god brings the whole sea to rest, without a wave, without a swell. 983 And this is the reason why there is no other creature that men love more. Thanks to her they sail the sea without a fear in the dead of winter for seven days and seven nights. For the moment, journey by sea is safer for them than by land. If it is proper to speak briefly of her several virtues, she is so devoted to her mate that she keeps him company, not for a single season, but throughout the year. Yet it is not through wantonness that she admits him to her company, for she never consorts at all with any other male; it is through friendship and affection, as with any lawful wife. When by reason of old age the male becomes too weak and sluggish to keep up with her, she takes the burden on herself, carries him and feeds him, never forsaking, never abandoning him; but mounting him on her own shoulders, she conveys him everywhere she goes and looks after him, abiding with him until the end.
As for love of her offspring and care for their preservation, as soon as she perceives herself to be pregnant, she applies herself to building the nest, not making pats of mud or cementing it on walls and roofs like the house-martin; nor does she use the activity of many different members of her body, as when the bee employs its whole frame to enter and open the wax, with all six feet pressing at the same time to fashion the whole mass into hexagonal cells. But the halcyon, having but one simple instrument, one piece of equipment, one tool — her bill and nothing else, co operating with her industry and ingenuity — what she contrives and constructs would be hard to believe without ocular evidence, seeing the object that she moulds — or rather the ship that she builds. Of many possible forms, this alone cannot be capsized or even wet its cargo. She collects the spines of garfish and binds and weaves them together, some straight, others transverse, as if she were thrusting woven threads through the warp, adding such bends and knots of one with another that a compact, round unit is formed, slightly prolate in shape, like a fisherman’s weel. When it is finished, she brings and deposits it beside the surging waves, where the sea beats gently upon it and instructs her how to mend and strengthen whatever is not yet good and tight, as she observes it loosened by the blows. She so tautens and secures the joints that it is difficult even for stones or iron to break or pierce it. The proportions and shape of the hollow interior are as admirable as anything about it; for it is so constructed as to admit herself only, while the entrance remains wholly hidden and invisible to others — with the result that not even a drop of water can get in. Now I presume that all of you have seen this nest; as for me, since I have often seen and touched it, it comes to my mind to chant the words
Once such a thing in Delos near Apollo’s shrine
I saw, the Altar of Horn, celebrated as one of the Seven Wonders of the World because it needs no glue or any other binding, but is joined and fastened together, made entirely of horns taken from the right side of the head. Now may the god be propitious to me while I sing of the Sea Siren — and indeed, being both a musician and an islander, he should laugh good-naturedly at my opponents’ scoffing questions. Why should he not be called a “conger-slayer” or Artemis be termed a “surmullet-slayer”? Since he well knows that Aphrodite, born of the sea, regards practically all sea creatures as sacred and related to herself and relishes the slaughter of none of them. In Leptis, you know, the priests of Poseidon refrain entirely from any sea food, and those initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis hold the surmullet in veneration, while the priestess of Hera at Argos abstains from this fish to pay it honour. For surmullets are particularly good at killing and eating the sea-hare, which is lethal to man. It is for this reason that surmullets possess this immunity, as being friendly and life-saving creatures.
36 1 984 Furthermore, many of the Greeks have temples and altars to Artemis Dictynna and Apollo Delphinios; and that place which the god had chosen for himself the poet says was settled by Cretans under the guidance of a dolphin. It was not, however, the god who changed his shape and swam in front of the expedition, as tellers of tales relate; instead, he sent a dolphin to guide the men and bring them to Cirrha. They also relate that Soteles and Dionysius, the men sent by Ptolemy Soter to Sinope to bring back Serapis, were driven against their will by a violent wind out of their course beyond Malea, Bwith the Peloponnesus on their right. When they were lost and discouraged, a dolphin appeared by the prow and, as it were, invited them to follow and led them into such parts as had safe roadsteads with but a gentle swell until, by conducting and escorting the vessel in this manner, it brought them to Cirrha. Whence it came about that when they had offered thanksgiving for their safe landing, they came to see that of the two statues they should take away the one of Pluto, but should merely take an impress of that of Persephone and leave it behind.
Well might the god be fond of the music-loving character of the dolphin, to which Pindar likens himself, saying that he is roused
Like a dolphin of the sea
Who on the waveless deep of ocean
Is moved by the lovely sound of flutes.
Yet it is even more likely that its affection for men renders it dear to the gods; for it is the only creature who loves man for his own sake. Of the land animals, some avoid man altogether, others, the tamest kind, pay court for utilitarian reasons only to those who feed them, as do dogs and horses and elephants to their familiars. Martins take to houses to get what they need, darkness and a minimum of security, but avoid and fear man as a dangerous wild beast. To the dolphin alone, beyond all others, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage. Though it has no need at all of any man, yet it is a genial friend to all and has helped many. The story of Arion is familiar to all and widely known; and you, my friend, opportunely put us in mind of the tale of Hesiod,
But you failed to reach the end of the tale.
When you told of the dog, you should not have left out the dolphins, for the information of the dog that barked and rushed with a snarl on the murderers would have been meaningless if the dolphins had not taken up the corpse as it was floating on the sea near the Nemeon and zealously passed it from group to group until they put it ashore at Rhium and so made it clear that the man had been stabbed.
Myrsilus of Lesbos tells the tale of Enalus the Aeolian who was in love with that daughter of Smintheus who, in accordance with the oracle of Amphitrite, was cast into the sea by the Penthilidae, whereupon Enalus himself leaped into the sea and was brought out safe on Lesbos by a dolphin.
And the goodwill and friendship of the dolphin for the lad of Iasus was thought by reason of its greatness to be true love. For it used to swim and play with him during the day, allowing itself to be touched; and when the boy mounted upon its back, it was not reluctant, but used to carry him with pleasure wherever he directed it to go, while all the inhabitants of Iasus flocked to the shore each time this happened. Once a violent storm of rain and hail occurred and the boy slipped off and was drowned. The dolphin took the body and threw both it and itself together on the land and would not leave until it too had died, thinking it right to share a death for which it imagined that it shared the responsibility. And in memory of this calamity the inhabitants of Iasus have minted their coins with the figure of a boy riding a dolphin.
From this the wild tales about Coeranus gained credence. 985 He was a Parian by birth who, at Byzantium, bought a draught of dolphins which had been caught in a net and were in danger of slaughter, and set them all free. A little later he was on a sea voyage in a penteconter, so they say, with fifty pirates aboard; in the strait between Naxos and Paros the ship capsized and all the others were lost, while Coeranus, they relate, because a dolphin sped beneath him and buoyed him up, was put ashore at Sicinus, near a cave which is pointed out to this day and bears the name of Coeraneum. It is on this man that Archilochus is said to have written the line
Out of fifty, kindly Poseidon left only Coeranus.
When later he died, his relatives were burning the body near the sea when a large shoal of dolphins appeared off shore as though they were making it plain that they had come for the funeral, and they waited until it was completed.
That the shield of Odysseus had a dolphin emblazoned on it, Stesichorus also has related; and the Zacynthians perpetuate the reason for it, as Critheus testifies. For when Telemachus was a small boy, so they say, he fell into the deep inshore water and was saved by dolphins who came to his aid and swam with him to the beach; and that was the reason why his father had a dolphin engraved on his ring and emblazoned on his shield, Cmaking this requital to the animal.
Yet since I began by saying that I would not tell you any tall tales and since, without observing what I was up to, I have now, besides the dolphins, run aground on both Odysseus and Coeranus to a point beyond belief, I lay this penalty upon myself: to conclude here and now.
37 1 Aristotimus. So, gentlemen of the jury, you may now cast your votes.
Soclarus. As for us, we have for some time held the view of Sophocles:
It is a marvel how of rival sides
The strife of tongues welds both so close together.
For by combining what you have said against each other, you will together put up a good fight against those who would deprive animals of reason and understanding.